News emerged Monday that a U.S. soldier has passed away from the injuries he sustained while operating a floating pier off the coast of Gaza, a Biden-Harris project that had to be abandoned prematurely in July due to rough sea conditions. Military experts are calling for an investigation into the soldier’s death.

Army Sgt. Quandarius Davon Stanley, 23, suffered critical injuries in May in a “non-combat” incident while working on a floating pier that was constructed by the 7th Transportation Brigade Expeditionary (TBX) in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip. The Biden-Harris administration ordered the pier to be constructed in March to deliver humanitarian aid in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that left 1,200 Israelis dead and the resulting military response from Israel in Gaza, which displaced thousands of Palestinians.

But, as reported at the time, the military warned the administration that construction of the pier would be an immense challenge amid “the sea and weather conditions of the Mediterranean and security challenges on the ground in Gaza.” President Joe Biden nonetheless decided to pull the trigger on the project, only telling the Pentagon of his plans “days before he announced it in March.” With an estimated cost of $320 million and the work of 1,000 servicemembers, the pier was built over a period of two months, but it quickly became clear that it would not be able to withstand the Mediterranean Sea’s conditions.

In May, bad weather broke the pier apart, “forcing officials to tow it northbound toward Israel for repairs.” Less than a week after the pier was re-anchored to the shore in Gaza on June 7, it again became detached and had to be towed north to avoid more bad weather.

Even during the short period when the pier was operational in May, trucks carrying supplies from the pier into Gaza were looted before they reached their destinations, forcing the U.S. military to halt deliveries. In mid-July, officials announced that the pier would be ending its mission, two months earlier than originally planned. As a result, the pier was only operational for “20 out of the 60 days it was deployed.”

“Unfortunately, it appears the Biden administration may have jumped at an ill-advised effort to put the floating pier on the Gaza coast allegedly to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid,” Lt. Col. (Ret.) Bob Maginnis, Family Research Council’s senior fellow for National Security, told The Washington Stand. “Reports from the scene indicate that was ill-advised, not something Israeli ground commanders supported, but happened because Biden officials ordered it to happen.”

Maginnis continued, “The particulars of the incident that injured Sergeant Quandarius Stanley while working on the Trident Pier on the Gaza coast ought to be made public. Then, if there was misconduct that resulted in his injury, those parties ought to be held accountable. We may never know the details.”

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. Boykin, a 36-year Army veteran who serves as FRC’s executive vice president, concurred, calling for an investigation into Stanley’s death.

“It is my view that there must be a comprehensive investigation into this incident, which is tragic and was probably avoidable,” he told TWS. “In that investigation, I would ponder two things. First, was this mission important enough to risk the lives of American soldiers, especially when the president had been warned of the dangers and the probability that it was not going to work? Should this mission have been done by the Israelis even if we had to provide the material for the project? Secondly, were these servicemembers adequately trained for their mission or was their training time eaten up by DEI requirements which left them not as well trained as they should have been?”

Maginnis further remarked that if conditions on the ground aren’t fully taken into account, tragedies like Stanley’s death are more likely to occur.

“Generally speaking, it is quite possible that decision-makers sitting in air-conditioned spaces at the State and Defense Departments order such activities,” he noted. “Perhaps they did so in spite of contrary advice from uniformed experts and because the Biden administration wanted to send a message to the Palestinian people that the U.S. was there to help. However, perhaps even though well-intended, the effort failed and as a result, U.S. servicemembers were injured and now one died as a direct result.”

“Over the past four years, Biden officials appear to have made many decisions that resulted in serious and deadly consequences for our military personnel beginning with the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan that filled 13 body bags with American heroes,” Maginnis concluded. “The failed Gaza pier can now be added to that list.”